MIDNIGHT—“A PANORAMA OF BLACK LACQUER AND SILVER.”
I had no extraordinary proofs to offer, but, such as they were, I now know, by comparison with the published reports of Mr. Peary himself, they were as good as any offered by anyone. I was perhaps unfortunate in not having, as Mr. Peary had, a confederate body of financially interested friends to back me up, as was the National Geographic Society.
Not satisfied with unjustly attacking my claim, Mr. Peary's associates proceeded to assail my past career, and I was next confronted by an affidavit made by my guide, Barrill, to the effect that I had not scaled Mt. McKinley, an affidavit which, as I later secured evidence, had been bought. A widely heralded "investigation" was announced by a body of "explorers" of which Peary was president. One of Colonel Mann's muck-rakers was secretary, while its moving spirit was Mr. Peary's press agent, Herbert L. Bridgman. In a desperate effort to help Peary, a cowardly side issue was forced through Professor Herschell Parker, who had been with me on the Mt. McKinley trip but who had turned back after becoming panic-stricken in the crossing of mountain torrents. Mr. Parker expressed doubt of my achievements because he differed with me as to the value of the particular instrument to ascertain altitude which I, with many other mountain climbers, used. I had offered all possible proofs as to having climbed the mountain, as full and adequate proofs as any mountaineer could, or ever has offered.
I resented the meddlesomeness of this pro-Peary group of kitchen explorers, not one of whom knew the first principles of mountaineering. From such an investigation, started to help Peary in his black-hand effort to force the dagger, with the money power easing men's conscience—as was evident at the time everywhere—no fair result could be expected. And as to the widely printed Barrill affidavit—this carried on its face the story of pro-Peary bribery and conspiracy. I have since learned that for it $1,500 and other considerations were paid. Here was a self-confessed liar. I did not think that a sane public therefore could take this underhanded pro-Peary charge as to the climb of Mt. McKinley seriously. Indeed, I paid little attention to it, but by using the cutting power of the press my enemies succeeded in inflicting a wound in my side.
I was thus plunged into the bewildering chaos which friends and enemies created, and swept for three months through a cyclone of events which I believe no human being could have stood. Before returning, I felt weakened mentally and physically by the rigors of the North, where for a year I barely withstood starvation. I was now whirled about the country, daily delivering lectures, greeting thousands of people, buffeted by mobs of well-meaning beings, and compelled to attend dinners and receptions numbering two hundred in sixty days. The air hissed about me with the odious charges which came from every direction. I was alone, helpless, without a single wise counsellor, under the charge of the enemies' press, mud-charged guns fired from every point of the compass. Unlimited funds were being consumed in the infamous mill of bribery.
I had not the money nor the nature to fight in this kind of battle—so I withdrew. At once, howls of execration gleefully rose from the ranks of my enemies; my departure was heralded gloriously as a confession of imposture. Advantage was taken of my absence and new, perjured, forged charges were made to blacken my name. Far from my home and unable to defend myself, Dunkle and Loose swore falsely to having manufactured figures and observations under my direction. When I learned of this, much as it hurt me, I knew that the report which I had sent to Copenhagen would, if it did anything, disprove by the very figures in it the malicious lying document published in the New York Times. This, combined with the verdict rendered by the University of Copenhagen—a neutral verdict which carried no implication of the non-attainment of the Pole, but which was interpreted as a rejection—helped to stamp me in the minds of many people as the most monumental impostor the world has ever seen.
I fully realized that under the circumstances the only verdict of an unprejudiced body on any such proofs to such a claim must be favorable or neutral. The members of the University of Copenhagen who examined my papers were neither personal friends nor members of a body financially interested in my quest. Their verdict was honest. Mr. Peary's Washington verdict was dishonest, for two members of the jury admitted a year later in Congress, under pressure, that in the Peary data there was no absolute proof.
By the time I determined to return to my native country and state my case, I had been placed, I am certain, in a position of undeserved discredit unparalleled in history. No epithet was too vile to couple with my name. I was declared a brazen cheat who had concocted the most colossal lie of ages whereby to hoax an entire world for gain. I was made the subject of cheap jokes. My name in antagonistic newspapers had become a synonym for cheap faking. I was compelled to see myself held up gleefully as an impostor, a liar, a fraud, an unscrupulous scoundrel, one who had tried to steal honors from another, and who, to escape exposure, had fled to obscurity.
All the scientific work which scientists themselves had accepted as valuable, all the necessary hardships and the inevitable agonies of my last Arctic journey were forgotten; I was coupled with the most notorious characters in history in a press which panders to the lowest of human emotions and delights in men's shame. When I realized how egregious, how frightful, how undeserved was all this, my soul writhed; when I saw clearly, with the perspective which only time can give, how I, stepping aside, in errors of confused judgment which were purely human, had seemingly contributed to my unhappy plight, I felt the sting of ignominy greater than that which has broken stronger men's hearts.
For the glory which the world gives to such an accomplishment as the discovery of the North Pole, I care very little, but when the very result of such a victory is used as a whip to inflict cuts that mark my future destiny, I have a right to call a halt. I have claimed no national honors, want no medals or money. My feet stepped over the Polar wastes with a will fired only by a personal ambition to succeed in a task where all the higher human powers were put to the test of fitness. That victory was honestly won. All that the achievement ever meant to me—the lure of it before I achieved it, the only satisfaction that remains since—is that it is a personal accomplishment of brain and muscle over hitherto unconquered forces, a thought in which I have pride. From the tremendous ovations that greeted me when I returned to civilization I got not a single thrill. I did thrill with the handclasp of confident, kindly people. I still thrill with the handclasp of my countrymen.